Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/154

 120 PLINT's KATTJIIAL HISTOET. [Book II. all, if we are to believe Plato for an immense space where the Atlantic ocean is now extended. More lately we see what lias been produced by our inland sea ; Acarnania has been overwhelmed by the Ambracian gulf, Achaia by the Corinthian, Europe and Asia by the Propontis and Pontus. And besides these, the sea has rent asunder Leucas, Antir- rhium, the Hellespont, and the two Bosphori^ CHAP. 93. (91.) LANDS WHICH HAVE BEE:N" SWALLOWED UP. And not to speak of bays and gulfs, the earth feeds on itself; it has devoured the very high mountain of Cybotus, with the town of Curites ; also Sipylus in Magnesia^, and formerly, in the same place, a very celebrated city, which was called Tantalis ; also the land belonging to the cities Gralanis and Gamales in Phoenicia, together with the cities themselves ; also Phegium, the most lofty ridge in Ethiopia"*. Nor are the shores of the sea more to be depended upon. CHAP. 94. (92.) CITIES WHICH HAVE BEEN ABSOEBED BY THE SEA. The sea near the Palus Mseotis has carried away Pyrrha and Antissa, also Elice and Bura'^ in the gulf of Corinth, traces of which places are visible in the ocean. From the 1 This celebrated narrative o^ Plato is contauied in liis Trtnseus, Op. ix. p. 296, 297 ; it may be presumed that it was not altogether a fiction on the part of the author, but it is, at tliis time, impossible to determiae what part of it was derived from ancient traditions and what from the fertile stores of his own imagination. It is referred to by various ancient writers, among others by Strabo. See also the remarks of Brotier in Lemaire, i. 416, 417. 2 Many of these changes on the surface of the globe, and others men- tioned by our author in this part of liis work, are alluded to by Ovid, in liis beautiful abstract of the Pythagorean doctrme, Metam. xv. passim. 3 See Ai-istotle, Meteor, ii. 8, and Strabo, i. For some accoimt of the l)laces mentioned in this chapter the reader may consult the notes of Hardouin in loco. '* Poinsinet, as I conceive correctly, makes the following clause the commencement of the next chapter. ' See Ovid, ]Ietam. xv. 293-295 ; also the remarks of Hardouin iu Lemaire, i. 418.